It was very, veeery hard to write this chap. Idk why. Simply, it was pain in the ass. 2 pages a day, then nothing. I still wanted to elongate the chapter making few more encounters, but I said to myself: Fuck it, post it just like it is, and maybe as I would start another chap tomorrow, it would be easier to write. So here I am releasing bit uncooked chapter.

Edited by: KenChi死

We stepped inside the dungeon.

“Crap. Each time I walk in here I get this ominous feeling. I mean even the air here is strange…”

She was right. The density of mana could make most of the people that had no previous contact with magic collapse. Everyone would feel a bit strange here but…

You have entered arena with strong [Chaos] affinity[Chaos magic] is 25% more potent

[Chaos magic] based spells cost 25% less

Your [Mana] regeneration is increased by 10%

I felt … refreshed? Well, boosts are all fine and dandy, but I had to keep in mind, that monsters here would have the same affinity. I had to use chaos magic carefully, or it would end the same way as when I used my fire chaos magic against that hellspawn in the Halloween realm.

The tower was a bit humid, every once in a while you could hear the drops of water falling from the ceiling. The place was dusty, and I am pretty much sure that it resembled some old ruins.

We stopped into a pretty spacious room that was connected with many corridors, I could tell that thanks to the wind, that was blowing from so many directions. And then I heard it and felt it. Something growled from behind one of the corridors as it smelled us. And then it started moving. With each of its steps the ground shook slightly. In no time the smell of dirt, rotting flesh and excrement hit my nostrils.

“Oh! Your first opponent is here!” Gisele chuckled. “… that’s ones a big son of a … pardon me. A lady needs to watch her tongue… Well, Have fun! Oh, and avoid that butcher knife of his… One slice and you will be split into half.”

Wait, what? It carries a weapon?

The monster came from behind the corridor, it roared after seeing me (as Gisele jumped on one of the broken columns outside of its line of sight) and charged my way.

In panic I activated all kind of life and magic detecting skills. I “saw” it aura. Life forces were barely there, proving that this monster may be partly undead, or right on its way to became one. Yet the thing that was bothering me, was the size of this creature. The beast was easily three times bigger than me.

It’s charge started with a few steps, slowly accelerating its enormous body.

Tsh, I need to know what I am fighting with! Appraisal!

[Appraisal] failed because of your eyes damagePlease, make a physical contact with [Appraising object] to get valid information

You must be shitting me!

The creature raised its hand, the movement was followed by wheezing sound. He held something sharp in it, mentioned by Gisele a butcher knife? It had to be huge!

I dodged to the side, at the same time the place I was standing a moment ago was crushed.

Gisele’s POV

Corrupted abomination. Decent opponent for every middle rank adventure. The monstrosity looked like dozens of bodies patched (merged) together. Completely hairless with sick looking skin turning from green to purple. She has seen once how those creatures are made. There are non-combat monsters lurking in the shadows of the tower – Reanimators. They were using the bodies of monster and adventurers that have fallen and using dark arts are bringing them to state between life and death. Poor monsters. Not alive nor dead… holding to rest of their sanities doomed to suffer. Killing them is an act of mercy. She positioned herself on one of the broken columns, to not bother the beast nor Zari, to have a better look upon the battlefield, and have a better position to intervene, if the situation would turn dire.

The beast charged clumsily at her companion raising the butcher blade over its head. Zariel ] waited till the very last moment, with head hanging low, as he was listening to the movements of the loud beast. The huge knife hit the ground creating dozens of crackles on the floor. The monster looked dumbfounded at the place where his weapon hit. He was looking for sliced flesh, which he didn’t find. Zari, probably by accident, jumped at the perfect moment, when the knife blocked part of the monster vision. Now he was standing in the beasts blind spot.

He took the ring off of his finger and dropped it in the air

“Spear! D’iabel!” He yelled, in same time the ring was sounded by purple smoke as it began morphing into the desired shape.

Yet the loud vocal command of Zariel brought the monster’s attention.

“Meeeeeeat…” The monster moaned weekly.

Why she brought him into such a dangerous place? She wanted to train him by herself, but… she was an awful teacher. Her draconic blood boiled each time her weapon crashed, then she would lose herself in the desire to battle. All training sessions ended with bruising her little rival. Each time she chuckled and told him to get better… but she was embarrassed. Embarrassed by her lack of self control. Even now, as she was looking at the white haired boy fighting with an abomination her heart was pounding a little, her senses were yelling to jump in and slaughter the monster.

NO! He is the best sparring partner for him right now. Big, slow, loud.

The monster was making unnecessarily big swings as it was unleashing a cascade of blows.

Transversal swing from right, Zari leaned in the opposite direction making the blade miss him by few centimeters. Slowly he was getting used to the blows. Another transversal slash, this time from the left. Every person that fought a few times here would already know, that the beast would now either used its body mass to perform a 360 degree cut – especially when he would fought with a party, or hold the blade with both hand and strike vertically. The beast picked second option.

Roaring in madness, monster took a step back to strike from above. In that moment Zari jumped between its leg for a moment before the ground that he was standing on was crushed.

He quickly raised and guided by intuition stabbed his spear in the monster’s back, in the area where the lugs and heart should be located. Decently made. Now he should took a few step back and keep stabbing the monster until it would fall over.

Hm? Why isn’t he making distance? Why is he standing there just like that? CRAP! He can’t see the monster so he don’t know it’s partly undead! Normally, such a stab would be lethal, yet this monster won’t die until the unholy magic that keeps it moving wouldn’t perish!

“Zari! Back off!” I yelled.

Bit too late. Even as he tried to jump away right away he still was hit by the hand of the abomination as it turned around. He flew a few meters and hit the floor with a groan.

“Are you ok?!”

He raised with a grimace of pain on his face

“Easy… I got this!... Why is this fucker is alive? I am pretty much sure I got him…” “My bad… he is… kinda…. Undead… each time you would damage him, he would use part of his magical powers to patch its wounds right away. You have to keep stabbing him until his magic would perishes…”

He only smiled silly

“Undead?” The monster once again looked in his direction and started marching “Sort of…”

He sighed.

“Ya could have told me that earlier… or wait… I should have know, bastard smells like… ugh.”

After hearing that the abomination was an undead he became… careless? Relaxed?

“I like your optimism, but your enemy is still livin… brethin… damn. Walking.”

The monster started marching again playing with its huge knife. Boy simply raised his hand toward the beast. Small sparkle of fire appeared there, first a gentle, almost playful fire. Then a few more and more. Slowly they became stronger, brighter and warmer.

“Wandering spirits… my little wisps… may I ask you a little help? Take this poor, tormented souls together with you to the spirit realm.” He said smiling gently. Those little orbs of fire that were dancing a top of his palm squeaked cheerfully before jumping on the monster

Explosion after explosion could be heard in the dungeon. The hand holding blade flew away, a huge hollow appeared in the monster stomach. The undead released an aura of violet magic around its body as it tried to repair itself.

Yet the flames that covered his whole body did not make that task easier for him.

Of course, fire magic… THAT’S NOT THE POINT!

“YOU DUMMY! What’s the purpose of this adventure? Crisping your enemies wouldn’t teach you how to move better in your surroundings! You have to kill it with your own hands! He was big! He was slow! And he was loud! Perfect target! What did you learn, hm? You better pray that we encounter another one on this floor, because trust me, he is the weakest possible opponent that you would encounter! The rest are faster, smarter and make way less noise!”

Idiot! Idiot! Stupid dumb little idiot! IdiotIdiotIdiotIdiot! IDIOT!

“Um… I am sorry… are you mad, sis?” He said it in a repentant tone

… He called me…

“O…Of course I am!” Crap! Stupid voice! Say it in confident tone! “…I…I..I kept thinking for really long how could I help you… a…and you just took easiest way… s…so..” “Sis, I am sorry. I will do my best, so please don’t get mad!”

NOOO! Not that poor puppy tone! Stop that! What are you doing with me! You bastard!

“…It’s ok. Just do you best…” I am a weak person. I hate myself.

I wanted to say a few more words, but then my attention was drawn by something else. The sound. Very quiet, almost barely noticeable. So they are already here, hm?

“Zari… do you remember the part, when I said that big monsters job here is to draw the attention from smaller monsters?” “I do… wait, don’t sat that…” “Enjoy yourself!”

Yeah! That will show him! Well, I prepared my sword, just in case. The quiet scratching sound get a little louder. From slots in the walls, from behind the corridors and from every darkened place another monster started coming out. Not big ones, dozen never made a sound by themselves. Abominations are made mostly of flesh, yeah, barely and bones. But Reanimators would never let any part of the body simply go to waste.

Creepers – the damned morphed skeletons, or at least part of them. Rib cages, head and two limbs changed into sickles. The scratching sound was made as they used those sickles to slide themselves over the flow. “Just a torso, what can be dangerous about them?”

Yeah, those were the last words of one of rookie adventurers that came into this dungeon for the first time. Attracted to the sound and heat. Very fast, attacking usually the lower body. They were a great support for abominations. Zari was lucky, that he managed to kill it before the rest of the company took their invitation for a party.

I took a jumping position to be ready whenever the situation would turn dire. But I was not going to get myself involved. Not yet.

Zari POV

Fuck! I can barely sense them! That asshole from before was big and clothed in dense magic. He was like a glowing torch in the dark. Those little fuckers had as much mana in them as a bloody corpse! Like one or two sparkles appearing in the dark for a moment, just to vanish.

Which weapon should I use? Spear may be nice – it allows me to keep my distance and I can use it as a pole to strike a few of them away. Yet when I would get swarmed, it will be pretty much useless. The spear can still be decent in very close combat, but only against one enemy, if there would be more of them, the spear would grapple and hook over every possible enemy completely violating its movements. So swords? No. I will keep my trusted spear.

Two of them, four, eight… no seven… no… FUCK! Stop moving for god’s sake! I am trying to count how many of you I will have to put back to the grave!

The monster from the side pounced. I raised my spear to let it impale itself, yet the spear met no resistance and the mass of shadow was still getting closer toward me. My chest has been hit by some heavy object and the force behind me made me stumble and fall. I felt the movement of air on my face which warned mr just for a second before the blow.

I moved my head to the side. Some sharp object hit that place. Tsh, does it count as physical contact?! Appraise, damn it!

Shadowling Creeper [Undead]Level16TittlesLesser Undead

PuppetHp[218/220]Lp[82/110]SPNaSkillsNo Pain [Passive]

Slash [Active] [Level 11]

Life sensing [Passive]

Stabbing damage resistance [Passive]Undead brought back to life via sinister magic of [Reanimators]. Made of leftovers of corpse - mostly bones.

This undead has been enchanted with Evil forces of Dungeon, which are treating its damages [Life force points - Lp] - damages dealt to this creature would heal over time.

For the monster to be destroyed you have to either keep dealing more damages than monster can heal reaching [0hp] value, or exhaust its [Lp] - the monster would fall then lifeless.

Skeleton like undead? And I tried to pierce it? Haha, so the tip of my spear simply slid through his ribs? Haha, great. Sorry Gisele, I know you don’t like me using magic, but I don’t really have any choices now, do I?

I gathered mana unleashing another shock wave to kick the monster off of my body.

“D’iable, mace!” “I am here to serve”

The ring whispered.

My dance with the undeads began.